Waking Up
by fountainofthought
Summary: Burt Hummel was a morning person.  He always had been.  So when their son began to show the same early bird tendencies as a toddler, his wife had simply rolled over and demanded that he go be inhuman and cheerful with his child.


Burt Hummel was a morning person. He always had been. As a kid, he'd been up with the sun, and the habit had never left him. Even as a teenager, when his teammates had shown up, groaning, to morning practice, he'd already been on the field, warmed up and ready to play. So when their son began to show the same early bird tendencies as a toddler, his wife had simply rolled over and demanded that he go be inhuman and cheerful with his child.

He'd gone willingly, loving the quiet of the early morning, when they'd eat cereal and watch cartoons, curled up together on the couch. When Kurt was five, they'd started going on early morning Sunday drives, Burt pointing out the make and model of every car they passed to his wide-eyed son. At nine, when grief had finally relaxed its grip on them enough for things like cars and sunrises to matter again, Kurt had asked to go into the shop with him on weekend mornings. The hours they spent there, side-by-side, up to their elbows in grease, were a balm they both needed.

As adolescence neared, his son turned inward again, clearly wrestling with things Burt knew his wife would have handled better. So he always smiled when Kurt got up early to make them both a fancy breakfast. And he held his kid tight whenever he was allowed close enough for a hug. It was just the two of them, like it had been for too many years. Burt wished he could make it easier for his boy. He wished he could find him friends and the right words to make it better, like he could always find the right tool for the job. Burt had always been better with actions than with words, so he didn't say much. He just shared the quiet of the early morning with his kid, and drank his son's smiles in like sunshine after weeks of rain.

High school had turned out to be both weird and wonderful for Kurt, which perplexed and delighted Burt. He'd found caring, bizarre friends, a home for his talent in glee club, and a fierce sense of self that saw him through more struggles than any one teenager should have to face. And a year and a half ago, he'd found Blaine. The prep school kid hadn't made the best first impression on Burt, but he'd let that go after he saw the way Kurt looked at him when Blaine took his hand. The look was stunned and proud and so, so sweet that Burt knew in that moment that his son had just found out how to love and be loved. He couldn't take that away from him. Kurt was, in this regard, truly his mother's son.

So Burt had gotten used to his son's boyfriend being constantly underfoot. And they'd all adjusted to life in a family of four, with two extra significant others hovering around more often than not. Everyone had learned to knock before barging into a room unannounced, and the boys had figured out how to be brothers, even to the point of sharing secrets that they thought their parents knew nothing about. Carole was kind and gentle, and Burt pretended to be gruff, but they both loved their boys, and their life, and the way things seemed to be settling out for all of them.

This year had been good. Finn was a senior, and Kurt was a junior, and they knew who they were and how to live in their own skins. They sang together and joked around. They shared holidays and good-natured eye-rolls, and they fought about who would do the dishes and whose turn it was to take out the trash. They were brothers, in a family, and all four of them knew how special that was. At school, they lived their own lives, crossing paths in the choir room every afternoon. The glee club had really taken off, all the way back to Nationals, just a few weeks ago.

It had taken Kurt those weeks to plan exactly how their victory party should go. As far as Burt could tell, party planning involved watching the video from Nationals several hundred times, with a revolving door of friends, boyfriend, and parents at his side to admire how great they had been. It also involved extremely loud phone negotiations with Rachel, during which Kurt laid down the law about what was fashionable, what was not, and how much she was not allowed to drink, ever. Burt shot his son a questioning glance at that one, but Kurt just waved him off, saying "of course we're not going to drink, Dad. That would be terrible. Trust me." Strangely enough, Burt did.

Which was how he and Carole had ended up going out for dinner and a movie the previous night, their sons waving to them from the living room as they finished party preparations. When they'd gotten home, the party had still been raging. Rachel had commandeered the karaoke microphone and was insisting that Finn sing a duet with her. Kurt was cuddled up with Blaine in the opposite corner, watching Rachel and rolling his eyes. Burt and Carole wisely snuck upstairs and left them to it.

Regardless of the late evening they'd all had, Burt was up at first light. It was the first Sunday in June, and the quality of the light coming through the blinds told him that it was going to be a beauty. He allowed himself a moment of nostalgia for the Sunday drives he'd taken with Kurt so many years before. Life had changed for them both. He was married to a wonderful woman, who understood that he loved her just as much as he'd loved Kurt's mother, if somewhat differently. And his Kurt was so happy and confident and almost grown. And he was quite the party planner, if the disaster that was the first floor was anything to go by.

Burt wisely side-stepped the kitchen, not quite ready to see how much of a mess two dozen teenagers had managed to make, and wandered toward the living room, which was covered in sleeping bodies. Two girls were curled into his recliner, their dark and blonde heads close together and their hands clasped. Rachel was on the floor beneath them, wrapped around the trophy that was bigger than she was. Burt was fairly certain that she hadn't let it out of her sight since they'd won it. Finn was next to her, face down in a half-empty bag of Doritos, one hand in Rachel's and one on his friend Noah's face. Those boys had a strange friendship, but it seemed to work for them. Next to Noah, there was a line of glee kids sprawled across the floor, using one another as pillows and blankets. They looked like a litter of puppies, the way it was impossible to tell whose arms and legs belonged to whom.

And then there was Kurt. He had – of course – commandeered the couch, and he was stretched out on his back, one arm thrown over his head in that awkwardly graceful way he had inherited from his mother. His other arm was anchored around Blaine, who was squished between Kurt and the back of the couch, his face buried in Kurt's neck and his arms wrapped tightly around Kurt's waist. They couldn't possibly be comfortable, but he knew they'd rather be right there, together, than pretty much anywhere else. He remembered that feeling, from when he has about that same age, and he'd loved Kurt's mother in exactly the same way. It gave him hope, for Kurt, and for his future, and for them all.

He picked his way across the living room and bent down to brush a strand of hair off Kurt's forehead. Kurt shifted, blue eyes so like his mother's opening slowly.

"Dad?"

"Morning, Kid. Didn't mean to wake you so early."

"S'ok." Kurt shifted further, sliding out from Blaine's grasp with what was clearly long practice. "It's Sunday morning. We should make breakfast."

"I'd like that."

Burt put an arm around his son's shoulders, now nearly level with his after his most recent growth spurt. They walked quietly from the room, Kurt headed for the bathroom to brush his teeth while Burt got started on kitchen decontamination. As he cleaned, he thought about his son, and his first love, and the way that love could defy everything from youth to death to discrimination. Because if he knew his son – and he was pretty sure he did – he was going to be with Blaine for the long haul. He was that loving, and that stubborn.

Not to say that everything was smooth sailing for the two of them all the time. He remembered a particular incident last fall, when he'd come downstairs because Kurt was yelling into his phone, something about being an inconsiderate bastard. When he'd finally stopped yelling and hung up, Kurt stormed past him, muttering about how his car needed an oil change and detail. Burt bit back a smile and nodded, knowing that, for Hummel men, nothing said I need time to think like solo time at the shop. He'd pulled Kurt in for a hug and handed him the shop key without a word.

An hour after that, he'd opened the door to find Blaine standing on the porch, staring at his feet. He'd mumbled hello, which he never did, private school manners being what they were, and Burt had taken pity on the kid.

"He's at the shop, Blaine. You want the extra key, just in case?" Blaine had nodded, looking devastated, and Burt had squeezed his shoulder as he handed over the key and turned Blaine back toward his car.

Two hours later, judging that sufficient time had passed for them to battle it out and engage in age- and location- appropriate make-up activities, Burt pulled up to the shop to check on things. He found the boys curled up on the couch in his office, talking quietly. He'd made some noise about checking on a Volvo that had come in that morning, and left them to their discussion. By the time they made it back to the house for dinner, they were all smiles, and all was right in their world.

Blaine became a fixture at their house over the course of the year. He was over for dinner more often than not, and Burt finally got so tired of kicking him out in time for curfew that he put Blaine's home number on speed dial, so he could call his parents and let them know their kid was camped out on his couch. Blaine was polite, and he always helped with the dishes, and he was so clearly and hopelessly in love with Kurt that Burt let it slide. He figured he might as well get used to the kid, since he wasn't going anywhere. Blaine had proven, over and over, that he'd fight for Kurt and even with Kurt, when necessary. And Burt had to respect someone who would do that just to make sure his kid was happy.

"What are you smiling about, Dad?" Kurt had returned to the kitchen and was already getting down a bowl to start pancakes. Burt stacked the last plate in the dish drainer to dry and turned toward him.

"Nothing much. Just enjoying the quiet of a Sunday morning." They both heard a snore from the other room – likely Finn – and laughed quietly. "We don't get as many of these as we used to."

"Yeah." Kurt frowned. "Listen, Dad…"

"It's ok, Kurt." Burt reached out to pat his shoulder, then went to hunt in the fridge for some fruit. "Not all change is bad. It's ok to miss some things, but enjoy the new ones too."

"Hey, you two. Nice work." As if on cue, Carole stepped into the kitchen, clearly impressed by their progress.

"Thanks, Carole." Kurt walked over to her, and she reached up to kiss him on the cheek.

"How can I help?" She wrapped an apron around her waist and smiled at them both.

"Actually, if you could take over the pancakes…" Kurt trailed off as Blaine wandered in, rubbing his eyes and yawning. "Hey, sleepyhead."

"Hi." Blaine waved to the room in general, before leaning into Kurt, who wrapped an arm around him and brushed a kiss against his temple. Burt watched as they had one of those silent conversations they had recently perfected, as all couples do. Burt was pretty sure this one included 'good morning' and 'did you sleep ok?' and 'I'm really glad you're here,' among other things. A moment later, Blaine was coming toward him, a knife in his hand, ready to take over fruit salad preparation, and Kurt was taking Burt by the arm.

"Are you sure you two've got this?" Blaine and Carole both nodded at Kurt, and he grinned. "Good, because it's Sunday morning. I really need to go for a ride with my dad. We'll be back in a while."

As they walked out to the car, Burt tossed his son the keys and enjoyed the shocked look on his face.

"Really, Dad?"

"I think it's your turn to drive, kid."

Like he'd said earlier, not all change was bad. Sometimes quiet Sunday mornings turned into breakfast for 25. And sometimes the kid who had ridden with him wide-eyed at 5 became a young man who could teach him a thing or two about the world.

Burt Hummel had always been a morning person. It was just his luck that his son was too.


End file.
